Roberte, 40, resistant during the war, Calvinist and anticlerical, is deputy to the chamber and inspector of Censorship. She married Octave, an old Catholic aesthete, professor of canon law, whom she saves from impeachment for collaboration during the war. He submits his wife to a perverse custom: the laws of hospitality or prostitution of the wife by the husband.

Marseille. The director of a company offers a promotion to Francois (Michel Creton) if he accepts to help him fire all the staff from his office. If he refuses, he will himself be fired. Francois opts for the latter. He registers as unemployed and discovers what he has lacked so far in his life: a certain freedom. His habits are changing as well as his attitude towards the others changes ... Luce (Claude Jade), his wife, and Marquerite (Courtois Queen), her stepmother, are surprised: why he is not himself anymore?

When her old resistance buddies come to her looking for someone to helm a financially troubled liberal newspaper, Judith (Simone Signoret) is at first reluctant, but for this old hero of the French anti-Nazi resistance, challenges are hard to ignore. She takes on the job, mortgaging her house to keep the paper solvent. When things take a turn for the worse, because of concerted opposition by conservative forces, she is forced to sell the paper, and she regards this as a personal failure.

Henri Savin has managed a trucking company for his lover, Dominique Montlaur, for many years. Now he is planning to leave her for Julie Manet, the woman he has made pregnant, and Dominique is hysterical. She first threatens suicide, then shows up at a meeting of Savin and Julie. Dominique tries everything she can think of to break Savin and Julie apart, to no avail. Frustrated in her efforts, she jumps off a cliff and dies. Savin insists that he and Julie lie to the police about the encounter, although Dominique's death was a suicide and therefore they had no direct hand in it. Detective Waldeck investigates Dominique's death.

Christophe Merignac, a youngESCP graduate with a law degree but still unemployed, gets a job as a concierge in a luxury building. Using charm and cunning, he makes himself indispensable. He makes a fortune and marries a young, pretty and rich tenant, whom he happily deceives. The conclusion is bittersweet: he's "made it", but he doesn't love anyone. What's more, a young concierge who looks like a brother has just arrived in his building.

Leading man Michel Piccoli plays Pierre, a young musician who briefly catches sight of a beautiful woman dressed in blue and soon spends all of his time trying to track her down. After roaming the streets of Paris in search of the mystery woman, he recruits an old friend to help find her.

Description of a "hot street" and police methods: "raids", role of police assistants to stop the development of prostitution and "Nests", private works to rehabilitate prostitutes to normal life by teaching them a job.

Promising young racing car driver Joe Joe Quillico leaves the stock car racing scene in the United States in order to pursue Grand Prix racing in Europe. After limited success he manages to win the Spanish Grand Prix. His love life however, is much less successful and his winning on the track only serves to alienate the woman he loves - with unhappy consequences.